Board of Supervisors of San Bernardino County v. Lynna Monell, Clerk, Board of Supervisors of San Bernardino County, et al.

Term limits restrict the rights of voters to choose their preferred candidates and to associate with other like-minded individuals to support the candidates of their choice. Here, the members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors became subject to what may be the nation’s most stringent term limit— a lifetime limit of a single four-year term that categorically prohibits incumbents from ever appearing on the ballot. This Court has made clear that laws effectively barring certain categories of candidates from appearing on the ballot—like bans on independent candidates and onerous filing-fee requirements—merit heightened scrutiny. But this Court has never addressed what level of scrutiny applies to constitutional challenges to term limits for state and local offices. Absent this Court’s guidance, federal and state courts have fractured into three irreconcilable camps on the appropriate test. The California Court of Appeal applied one of the three divergent tests in upholding the San Bernardino term limit primarily on the theory that this drastic restriction doesn’t discriminate against any protected class. The question presented is: Does a term limit that bans incumbents from ever running for reelection merit heightened scrutiny?